Switch A and Z
by Cream of the Ice
Summary: For eighteen years they had been together. One night, one mistake, leads to ten years apart. But in all that time, could it really be said that they never gave way to their memories?


The smell of cigarette smoke had never carried good memories for Stanley Pines.

Oftentimes, it came into the house with his father after a bad day or alongside one of his mother's agitated clients. The stench was the periphery of many of his less-than-savory recollections, and from a young age he'd hated it.

Still, as he sat on the hood of his car, leaned forward on his knees and overlooking the only home he'd known for so long, the smell of the smoke seemed to become a small comfort as he let it into his system. By the time he'd steadied himself, he'd gone through half a pack.

Stanley Pines allowed himself a low groan, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and leaning back until back was rested against his windshield. He knew he should be on his way by now; he'd called in a favor from an old acquaintance to spread a rumor around town that he'd been hiding by the boarded-up cove on the beach, thereby allowing him enough time to leave town.

Time. Time was a funny thing. It had a habit of collapsing years into seconds and allotting hours to bleed into eternities. He'd asked Stanford why it felt like that once, but the answer he'd received reminded him all too much of a physics lecture and he had turned his ears off halfway through.

He groaned as he looked over the rusty old shoreline community that had been his life for so long. He'd dreamed of one day leaving, but now that he had to all he wanted was to keep himself there. He had no cause to stay; he wasn't welcome here any more. Not in the eyes of his community, the authorities, or his family.

And that included his brother.

Stanley gave an agitated huff. He didn't deserve this.

* * *

Stanford hadn't opened the curtains in two weeks.

He hadn't had much need to, of course. He'd been out on his own for most of the summer, picking up opportunities for scratch money when they came, preparing to leave for the lackluster university he'd been accepted to.

The crumpled up brochure for West Coast Tech hadn't left it's resting place on his nightstand, and Stanley's old bunk had become a permanent perch for his suitcase. The room would be empty in an hour; he would be off on his trek to Backupsmore and Stanley-

At the recollection of his brother, Stanford seized the broken remains of his perpetual motion machine and heaved it against the wall in a sudden burst of anger. It shattered into pieces, a few wayward sparks flitting between torn wires.

Looking down at it, he felt regret tinge his veins; not for the machine (what purpose could it possibly be to him now?), but regret for Stanley.

He hadn't seen his brother since the night their father had chucked him out of the house. Everything was too quiet now; Dad was more stoic than usual and Ma preoccupied herself with the baby and her clientele to escape from her new reality. No one said anything, but they could all still feel Stanley's presence, so much so that the most likely reason Stanford hadn't forced himself to open the curtains was because he half-afraid that Stanley would still be standing there, still pleading with him to come to his defense, to stop their father from ostracizing him.

Stanford lowered himself onto his brother's bunk, fastening the latch on his suitcase and, for a brief second, breathing in the his brother's scent. The comforter still smelled of toffee

A second surge of primal anger gripped the young polymath and brought his six-fingered fists into his luggage with enough force to rattle the bed's framework.

Stanford stood, his hands still clenched in unabated indignation.

He didn't deserve this.

* * *

It is a curious truth concerning twins that a kind of telepathic link seems to exist between them; a link that transcends the conventions of matter and spirit to transmit a single frequency between the two parties, regardless of the distance between them.

Neither of them believed such a claim; Stanley would call it 'stupid' and laugh it off. Stanford would argue that no concrete evidence exists for it.

Regardless, that night, for those few hours, they would've felt the link had they allowed themselves. They hadn't, of course, but it was undoubtedly there.

Musing the past, as they both knew, was a funny business. The human mind twists things around, sometimes in the favor of it's owner and sometimes to their contrary. In days past, when they'd both set in their minds to be treasure hunters, they'd learned that accuracy of memory was crucial. It had been Stanford who likened the process to a cipher he'd once used to encrypt a cheat sheet on an algebra test.

It was always just a matter of switching the A's and the Z's.

And so, unconsciously, as the two of them out Glass Shard Beach in their rearview mirrors, their home and their strained kinship quickly approaching the oblivion beyond the horizon, they each made a decision.

If only briefly, for a few hours at a time in between epochs of looking forward, they would look back to their past.

And they would swallow the lump that would inevitably come to their respective throats, and allow themselves to remember each other. This was their solemn oath to themselves.

For both parties, this pledge was made as their respective cars crossed the border out of New Jersey.


End file.
